Mother's Day Murder (18 page)

“Okay.” Lenny was off, heading straight for the front door.

“Hold on,” called Lucy, running after him. “I think it would be smart to come around from the back, just in case.” She began weaving her way through the trees and undergrowth. Lenny followed, moving clumsily and stumbling on stones and roots. A few minutes later they were standing at the edge of the woods, looking across a stretch of overgrown grass dotted with buttercups, staring at the back wall of the cabin. It was covered in worn plywood siding, broken by a chimney made of round stones and a small square window.

“Let’s go fast and stay low,” advised Lenny. “Head for the far corner, and use the building as cover.”

Lucy looked at him in surprise. “Where’d you learn this stuff?”

Lenny shrugged. “Movies.”

“Let’s hope it works in real life,” said Lucy, hunching over and dashing through the grass. Moments later Lenny joined her, and they stood very still, listening to the muffled sounds coming from the cabin: first, the thumping beat of rock music, then a feminine shriek. Instinctively, Lucy reached for Lenny, restraining him. Together they crept along the wall until they reached the window. It was closed tight and very dirty.

Lucy pressed her finger to her lips, and steadying herself by pressing against the wall with her fingers, she slowly raised herself just high enough to peek over the sill. Lenny did the same, and snatching a quick glimpse, they ducked back down.

Flipping around, Lenny collapsed with his back against the wall, his face white with shock. “Oh my God,” he said.

Seeing him sitting there, with tears running down his cheeks, Lucy had the fleeting thought that he looked like one of the shocked and wounded survivors of terrorists’ bomb blasts you saw pictured on the evening news.

N
ow it was Lucy who had to be restrained. The moment she’d glimpsed Sara, tied to a chair, back-to-back with Bart, who was also bound, she was ready to charge to the rescue. Now it was Lenny who was hesitating. He’d grabbed her by the elbow and wasn’t letting go.

“Okay, so we’ll call the cops,” she said, glaring at him and opening her phone.

“No,” he said, squeezing her hand and forcing her to close the phone. “I need a minute. I need to think.”

“This is out of control,” she hissed. “We have to do something now, before…” Her voice trailed off. Before what? Was it really true? Had she seen what she thought she saw? Suddenly everything was topsy-turvy; all her assumptions were wrong. Bart hadn’t abducted the girls; Heather and Ashley had abducted
him
…and Sara, too. They had taken their victims to the cabin, tied them together with duct tape, and were tormenting them. The likely valedictorian and salutatorian of Tinker’s Cove High School had put on black raincoats, smeared their faces with black paint, and transformed themselves into whirling dervishes, each holding a disposable lighter in one hand and a handgun in the other. The were playing a rap song at top volume on a boom box, dancing and prancing around Bart and Sara, flicking the lighters in their faces, and poking them with the handguns. Bart looked furious; Sara was terrified.

Hearing a muffled moan when there was a break in the music, Lucy came to a decision. “We’ve got to call the cops,” she said, opening her phone.

“No!” hissed Lenny.

“Are you crazy? I don’t think we’ve got much time here. Those girls are working themselves into a frenzy. We’ve got to stop this before they go too far.”

“No,” declared Lenny, pulling himself together. “There’s got to be an explanation for this. Maybe they’re making a film. That’s it. They’re rehearsing a scene….”

Lucy understood he was in shock, in denial. Lenny, after all, was the sort of father who gave his daughter a brand new Prius while he drove a broken-down old Volvo. He’d do anything to protect his child. But this was too much; Ashley and Heather had gone too far. “Let’s let the police sort it out,” she snapped, hitting the nine.

“No!” Lenny grabbed the phone and snapped it shut. “Do you want them to get in trouble?”

“Give that back!” hissed Lucy, eyes blazing. “What I want is for everybody to get out of this alive. You can think what you want, but I suspect it was the girls who killed Tina. We have to stop them now!”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Lenny. “My Heather wouldn’t do that, and neither would Ashley. Trust me. I know a thing or two about negotiating. We’ll go in calmly and assess the situation, and then we’ll decide what to do.”

“What are you saying? You think we can just walk in there and they’ll be glad to see us?”

“They’ll be relieved,” said Lenny, pulling himself up. “You’ll see.”

It was then that the first shot was fired.

Lucy ran around the cabin and through the door before she had time to think, knocking Heather off her feet. Ashley, who was on the other side of the room, turned and pressed the barrel of her gun against Sara’s head. Lucy froze in place, holding her hands up.

“Put the gun down!” yelled Lenny, appearing in the doorway.

Lucy’s eyes were on Sara, who was visibly trembling and whose eyes were enormous over the strip of duct tape that was covering her mouth.

Heather, who was sprawled on the floor, pushed herself up to a sitting position and started rubbing her elbows.

“Get up!” ordered Ashley. “Don’t go all soft now. Get the duct tape! Tie them up.”

Heather seemed to be having second thoughts. Her bottom lip was quivering, and she was blinking furiously, even as she picked up the gun that had fallen to the floor.

“Heather, honey,” pleaded Lenny. “Don’t listen to her. Don’t make things worse. We can work this out. Everything will be okay. Daddy can fix it. Honest.”

Heather sniffled, and her eyes darted between her father and Ashley, finally settling on Ashley. “Remember the plan,” said Ashley, perfectly composed, her voice steady. “It’s worked so far, hasn’t it? Everything will be fine as long as we stick to the plan.”

Heather was still wavering, supporting herself with one hand while holding the gun with the other. Ashley was in the power position: she was facing Lenny and Lucy and could fire off two rounds at close range in seconds. Lucy remembered Bart bragging that the whole family, including Ashley, enjoyed target shooting. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

“The police are on their way,” said Lucy, lying through her teeth. “You can’t get away. My car is blocking the road, and I’ve hidden the keys.”

On the floor, Heather whimpered, “Daddy’s right, Ashley. He’ll fix this. He will. You’ll still get into Harvard. They took that other girl who killed her mother.”

“Shut up!” ordered Ashley. “Can’t you see she’s lying? Tie her up and get the keys.”

“She said she hid them,” protested Heather.

“Check her pockets. See who’s right.”

Heather rose slowly and approached Lucy, who had no choice but to let her reach into her jacket pocket. If she moved a muscle, she didn’t doubt that Ashley would shoot her.

“You were right,” proclaimed Heather, pulling the keys out of Lucy’s pocket and holding them up.

“And she didn’t call the cops, either,” said Ashley. “Tape her feet and hands,” she ordered, adding a nasty chuckle. “When we’re through, it will look like they had some kind of kinky sex game going on.”

“No one who knows me will believe that,” muttered Lucy, watching as Heather approached, ripping off a strip of duct tape. She grabbed the girl’s arms just above the elbows and shoving her as hard as she could, propelling her across the room, toward Ashley. Ashley fired off a shot, and Heather screamed, dropping her gun and clutching her shoulder as she crashed to the floor. Lucy froze. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as Ashley turned in her direction, preparing to shoot. She was raising the gun when Lenny sprang into action and charged across the room, taking her down with a crash that shook the entire ramshackle cabin.

Lucy immediately knelt beside Heather, who was screaming hysterically as blood spread across the white T-shirt she was wearing under the open raincoat. Fearing the wound was serious, Lucy quickly yanked the duct tape off Bart’s hands and face. His legs were still taped to the chair, and to Sara, but by falling onto his knees, he was able to reach Heather to examine her wound. Lucy leapt across the room in two bounds and joined Lenny, who was struggling to hold Ashley down. She was fighting him with all the determination of a wild animal, biting and clawing, kicking and squealing, until Lucy finally succeeded in wrestling the gun out of her hand. “Be still right now or I’ll shoot,” threatened Lucy.

“Go ahead,” screamed Ashley, still struggling to free herself. She was pinned beneath Lenny, who was lying on top of her, grasping both of her wrists. “Do you think I care? I want to die!”

“Shut up!” It was Bart. He was in his undershirt; he had stripped off his dress shirt and was using it to make a pressure bandage for Heather. “It’s over. You’re a disgrace. You’re no daughter of mine. You deserve to spend the rest of your life in jail.”

“What do you know?” Ashley screamed at him. “You don’t know anything! Nothing’s ever good enough for you! I hate you! I hate you!”

Sobbing, Ashley finally went limp, turning her face away and curling up into a ball.

Panting and still holding the gun, Lucy kept a wary eye on her as Lenny pulled his phone out of his pocket and finally called for help. When he finished, Lucy watched him pick up the second gun, which he held uncomfortably, waving it around the room. A sobbing Ashley no longer seemed to pose a threat, but Lucy didn’t trust her and kept the other gun within reach as she began loosening the duct tape that still bound Sara and Bart. “Is she going to be okay?” she asked, with a nod to Heather.

“Yeah. It’s a shoulder wound. Not life threatening,” said Bart.

Heather’s brimming eyes were fixed on her father. “I’m so sorry, Dad,” she whispered, but Lenny didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at his daughter but stood silently, a man in deep shock.

Lucy tugged the last bit of tape connecting Bart and Sara, finally freeing them, and took her daughter in her arms. She hugged her close, stroking her hair, like she used to do when she was small.

Then, suddenly, there was a crash as Bart tackled Lenny, who fired off a wild shot as he fell to the floor. Lucy and Sara were shaking uncontrollably, watching as Bart gently unfolded Lenny’s fingers and took the gun. Lenny didn’t protest but lay still, exhausted, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“He was going to shoot himself,” said Bart, by way of explanation, as he tucked the gun into his belt. “I was afraid he might do something like that.”

“How…how’d you know?” asked Lucy. The shot was still ringing in her ears; she was stunned and struggling to make sense of it all.

“Because I feel like doing the same thing,” said Bart in a matter-of-fact tone.

Lucy thought of the shame she’d felt at the police station the night Sara was arrested and figured that Bart and Lenny must be experiencing a similar emotion, magnified many times over. Shame and…what else? Loathing? Disgust? Horror? Betrayal?

Lucy hugged Sara tighter.

In the distance, they could hear the wail of sirens. Help was on the way.

Even the normally unflappable Detective Horowitz seemed troubled as Ashley and Heather were taken away. Heather went in an ambulance, handcuffed to the stretcher. Ashley, cuffed and shackled, was driven off in a cruiser, her composure restored as she calmly sat in the back, looking like Paris Hilton on her way to a costume party. Bart and Lenny were also gone: Lenny was on his way to a psychiatric clinic to be evaluated as a suicide risk, and Bart was completing his statement at the police station.

“I’ve seen a lot in my career, but this takes the cake,” said Horowitz, seating himself beside Lucy on the cabin’s porch steps. Sara was behind them, sitting with her back against the cabin wall and her legs stretched out in front of her.

Lucy was glad of his company. She felt small and fragile, as if she were made of glass, and found his presence protective and reassuring. “What will happen to them?” she asked.

“Oh, there’ll be psychological exams and, no doubt, fancy lawyers, but in the end, they’ll go to jail for a very long time, maybe life.” He paused. “Ever since Columbine, the courts haven’t had much patience with juvenile offenders, and since they’re sixteen, they’ll be charged as adults. And these are serious charges, the murder of Tina Nowak, kidnapping Sara and Dr. Hume, conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to kidnap, assault and battery. The list goes on and on.”

“If the prosecutor can get a jury to believe two smart and attractive young girls actually did all these terrible things,” said Lucy. “I was here, I saw them in action, and I can hardly believe it.”

“I don’t think the prosecutor will have any trouble convincing a jury at all,” said Horowitz. “Ashley wrote it all down. We found a notebook in her backpack. It’s all there. Lists of things to do, all checked off. Buy a blond wig, check. Get duct tape, check. Get sedatives from Dad’s office, check. Drug Mom’s coffee so she’ll sleep. On and on, it’s all here. It’s damning.”

How typical,
thought Lucy, remembering how Sue had told her Ashley was obsessive about details. And just like a kid, too, to fail to consider the consequences of writing it all down and leaving a paper trail.

“Why did she do it? What was the objective?”

“To get out from under her parents,” said Horowitz. “Simple as that. Ashley really hated the way they controlled her, and she managed to convince Heather to go along with her.”

“It was all Ashley, really,” said Sara. “She was the one who cornered me in the girls’ room and made me go with them. Heather kept saying she didn’t think it was a good idea. She even complained to Ashley that it wasn’t fair that it was her mother who got killed and Ashley still had hers, even if she was in jail.”

“Doesn’t matter. Under the law, she’s just as guilty as Ashley,” explained Horowitz. He let out a long sigh. “But I agree that there are degrees of evil, and Ashley was clearly the instigator. She was relentless. She even planned to cut her father’s nurse’s brake line because the woman discovered the missing sedatives and questioned her about them.”

Lucy gasped. “Amanda Connell died in a crash this morning.”

Horowitz shook his head. “What a waste. Those girls had bright futures. If only they’d used all that energy for something positive. They might’ve found the cure for cancer. Who knows? Instead, they cooked up this crazy plan to eliminate their parents and anybody else who got in their way. Like it ever had a chance of succeeding.”

“I don’t know,” said Lucy. “They came pretty close.”

“Ashley thought of everything,” said Sara.

“Not quite,” said Lucy. “She forgot the school’s new attendance policy. They call the parents whenever a student cuts class.”

“Is that how you knew?” asked Sara.

“That attendance officer saved your life,” said Lucy.

Sara was quiet, thinking. “Do you think I’ll still have detention?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” said Lucy.